Happy Valentines Month!
This article is about sharing the love… the love of your services and how they can help people.
And what is the best way to do this? Create a Goal Driven Business.
A Goal Driven Business runs at FULL CAPACITY, or close to it.
That means no more room in the appointment book. It can mean that there is a waiting list to get in to be seen. But how is this achieved?
In a practice, it is a combination of excellent service and clinical results, inspired leadership, sound management, personal integrity, and … marketing.
Let's take a look at marketing first. What is marketing?
It is a method of helping people get what they innately want through communication. Marketing communication, either through one-to-one contact or through media, communicates and educates in such a way as to point to what an individual wants. It also can inspire them to get it.
Goal Driven marketing is helping people get to their goals!
People want to be free of pain and discomfort, but they do not know about your services or how your services can achieve this. And if they do, they may not trust that you can do it for them.
Every marketing approach you have must help those people who have a particular need or want to find you, and discover how your services can help them, and why they should trust you. This can be accomplished through patient referral programs or events, setting up external alliances, direct response ads in social media, radio, through one-to-one external relationship building, speaking events – all these and more point to how you can help people and that you can be trusted.
Testimonials and reviews top the list, but so do articles, newsletters, and support from opinion leaders. These are all outward types of marketing communications.
What would someone who knows what you know about your services do if they had pains, or lacked mobility, wanted to improve their immune system, and just be healthier? They’d drop by and see you for an adjustment or for some kind of a treatment from your office.
Not everyone wants what you have to offer, and even fewer want it bad enough to do something about it. But there are more than enough people who are looking, right now, to act who could keep your office full - if they just knew about what you could do for them.
Many times, I have heard chiropractors amazed at comments from patients who say, “Headaches? I didn’t know you could help with … headaches!” And the doctor just assumed everyone knew that they fixed headaches!
Don’t assume anything. It is a noisy world, and you and what you do is drowned in the snow storm of competitive messages and personal activities.
You must be industrious in getting your message out. You have to be continuous. And this is where most doctors fail in their marketing.
Marketing fails because it is not systematized,
organized, continuous, and managed.
A Goal Driven Business focuses its marketing three echelons of activity.
Marketing Procedures. Obviously, the different types of marketing communication and marketing procedures need to occur. This is the most evident (and fun) level of marketing – marketing procedures.
Marketing Motivation. But even if you have bookshelves of marketing binders and libraries of marketing books, they will do nothing unless you and your team are motivated to use them. So, this is the second level of marketing.
Marketing Management. The third, and I believe the most essential level of marketing activities, is marketing management.
Your front desk is organized and routine. Your billing is systematized and well managed -- or should be. So is your therapy area and your new patient procedures. But in most offices, marketing is not organized! It is hit and miss, now and then. When numbers are down, “Hey, let’s do some marketing.” When numbers are up, we all get “too busy,” and it is neglected.
Most practice marketing is reactive and symptomatic. This causes the PRACTICE ROLLER COASTER.
There are simple methods to effectively manage your marketing systems to help create a full appointment book which we can cover in another newsletter.
But keep in mind two important points in marketing:
Help People Get to Their Goals and Obtain What They Want. You are helping people who already have a perceived need and want to purchase what they are looking for. You simply must help them find it in what you offer and convince them that you are worthy of their trust.
Manage Your Marketing Procedures and Keep them Running. Stay motivated, find the procedures that work best for you, but organize your marketing procedures so that they continue. This will help you avoid the Practice Roller Coaster.
To find out more about how to create a Goal Driven Business and create a full appointment book, buy and read the book the Goal Driven Business. Read about it here. [book]
Happy Valentines Month! Spread the Love!
Ed
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